Leighton's Adventures in Game Design

Friday, July 27, 2012

Froggy Fling Dev Overview

As you can see in the picture things are starting to look a little better aren't they? I certainly think so at least. Below I'm going to detail what's happened up to this point. Kind of like a devlog that I won't update often enough...

IDEA

Originally I came up with a similar idea that I called Puck... something. It's not really important. Basically it was a game that combined air hockey and golf. Like a sad lonely one player air hockey game really. This was intended to be a mobile burst play game where a flinging mechanic would be the main control. After I gave it some thought, I deiced that I did not like the fling. While more visceral it lacks accuracy and is difficult to read. I thought about good controls for touch screen devices with mass appeal and narrowed it down to -

Drag and pull

Pros: High accuracy, intuitive, accessible

Cons: Hand over screen, not great for fast paced games

Tapping

Pros: Moderate accuracy, simple, versatile,
great for cats

Cons: Limited min size for easy tappable objects, hand over screen

Swiping

Pros: Visceral, good for stationary/slow objects

Cons: Limited accuracy, hand over screen

Shaking/tilt

Pros: Clear view of screen, visceral

Very limited control, limited use

Another popular control scheme is traditional, say Game Boy, controls displayed on screen. When you look at games that have been widely successful there are very few with this set up. I believe the reason behind this is most people playing mobile games do not want to play Game Boy games; they want to play mobile games. What's the big deal? Games made with a traditional control scheme are great for traditional games, but the majority of people with smart-phones specifically want games with touchscreen functionality and burst gameplay. Essentially games with a traditional control set up are fighting the platform.

After considering the above, I chose the drag and pull for my main control scheme. This would make the game more golf/pool like, but that still fits the over all feel I was looking for. In all honesty I just wanted a game that it would be fun to bounce things around in.

DEVELOPMENT

I admittedly am not a fantastic coder and this is probably why I was drawn to GameMaker early on. I began prototyping the idea out in GM:Lite to make sure I could do it. After I had several of the main functions working, proof to myself really, I purchased the Studio and Android versions of the program.

While I liked my little orange placeholder puck, I felt that it certainly use a little more...something. In fact the whole game needed more. While it was a fun mechanic to play with, it lacked any sort of personality. After rolling a few ideas around, bouncing them off people, I decided that the puck should be a frog on a lily pad and the gamespace should be pond themed. Bam! Personality.

Originally you would pull the frog's legs back, body remaining stationary on the pad, but this proved too difficult graphically for me. Instead the frog now remains stationary while the player pulls its tongue out, which upon release flings the frog froward.

Currently I'm working with my girlfriend to get more art assets into the game while I work on the more tedious things like level selections, menus, game saves, etc. I'm sure I'll eventually update this again when I have something more to show. I am hoping to finish this game before September starts, but...we'll see.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Hello everyone! It's been awhile hasn't it? Well I've been busy but am back with some great news! I am currently developing a game for Android devices to be called Froggy Fling. It's a simple but fun game where you must fling a frog. See? Good descriptive title. Well I'll have more info later on but for now here's a screen shot. Nearly all the early level mechanics are in and as soon as art is done for the early portion of the game I'll have a demo you can try out. Thanks for reading!

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Memory

Overview

Memory is a 2D
side-scrolling platformer meant to convey the human experience of memory and
remembrance. The game was inspired by the quote, "We have all forgot more than we remember." I wanted the game to play out as a simple conversation where someone is trying to remember something from long ago. The game is meant to be played as an experience rather than a goal oriented game.

Now there's more info below if, you know, you're into that sort of thing.

Goal

Like I stated above, the goal of this game was to convey the human experience of memory. When we consider what little of our own lives we can remember in a lifetime, we can easily gain new perspective on who we are, our history, and the meaning of our lives. Is it true that what we remember most is what we hold dearest? Perhaps it is a little less endearing than we would like to imagine. I am not attempting to create a scientific explanation or analysis of memory, but only a conveyance of the universal feeling of remembering and forgetting.

Meanings and Symbolism

Here I plan to explain the choices I made in the game. Whether or not I was successful in these decisions has yet to been seen, but once I can get some feedback I report back.

Meanings and Symbolism:

Arrangement – The
arrangement of the blocks represent the diminishing of memory over time.
As the player progresses the paths go from solid and orderly to sparse and
varied.

Color – The block
coloring represents the strengthening and fading of memories over time.
Memories rarely are remembered correctly either being remembered better or
worse than they were. Here white is represents clarity while having a
darker color represents the changing of the memory until they fade away
into black.

Movement of blocks –
If the player visits a second of the game, leaves, and then returns,
changes in the blocks placement will be apparent. This represents the
changing in the events or order of events when memories are revisited
later.

Blackness – The
blackness that is the background represents forgotten memories. This can
be seen later in the levels as it become more and more apparent. This is
also seen when the player “fails” and largeness of the blackness is seen,
dwarfing the remembered memories. This helps to drive home the fact of how
much in human memory is forgotten rather than remembered.

Friday, March 30, 2012

So in anticipation of next semester I wanted to upload some of the concept art done by my lovely girlfriend. I had requested her to draw some pictures of what she pictured the characters and enemies as, even though none of the anything will probably resemble these drawings after the first week.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Good News Everyone! Little Fields was picked up for Game Lab next semester! Basically what that means is I submitted a game pitch doc for a game to be made in next semester's Game Lab. Game Lab is the industry simulation course at UTD. So Little Fields was selected along with 11 other pitches to have a live pitch made. I made that pitch on last Friday and found out it was 1 of 5 selected to be made this Tuesday. Needless to say I was very happy about this and had a lot of positive response to my pitch. Here's a quick summary of the game:

"Little Fields is a third-person action-adventure platformer for children with stealth and puzzle elements to be released for digital download on Steam and XBLA. Set in a mystical forest, the player controls Alex/Annie Fields, a 10 year old who has got lost and must find a way out of the woods. Aided by a mysterious gooey backpack and a small companion made of energy, the player must help Fields satisfy the demands of the Forest Guardian before exiting. To do so, Fields will have to traverse platforming areas and stealth levels, solve puzzles and riddles, and perform quick time events. During the course of the game, Fields will mature and learn the values of non-confrontation, selflessness, and compromise."

Saturday, March 3, 2012

So I decided to challenge myself to make a game in an hour based off a title I got from the Video Game Name Generator(tons of fun to be had there). I ended up with something like Super Space Attraction Survival...something like that. Anyway here is the result...I suppose it could have been worse.

Sunday, January 29, 2012

So unfortunately I did not have anytime over the break to work on any projects of my own, but I did have a chance to get a head start on next semesters game for GPL(Game Production Lab). Seven other people and I are working on a game called Multiverse, designed by Addison Ziegler, our creative director. My job is primarily prototyping the game out, mechanics and levels, with GameMaker and once prototyping is complete I will be bumped to 2D art and other places if need be. The final game will be a 2.5 platformer built in UDK.

So far we are about 2 weeks into production with a playable prototype being due in about a week consisting of 10 levels. So I still have some work to do.

Like I said before Multiverse is a 2.5 platformer with a core mechanic of being able to switch between two worlds to be able to complete a level. The worlds are meant to be crazy, creepy, zany, and maybe a little disgusting. Each of the two worlds is supposed to be unique in it's own right with its own inhabitants, style, music, and feel, while the layout of the level in each world will be very similar with few functioning differences. Anyway, it's a great idea and I think it's going along great so far. What I have currently is a crude prototype that can ONLY be played with a controller currently. Since my prototype will eventually be scrapped for the actual game build in UDK I doubt I will be going back and adding keyboard function in. Cause I'm lazy.

Anyway if you want to test it out here is a link to the exe.(You need the exe and other files together in a folder to play)

Alright. So I'm a little late in getting this one up. Our final project in our Rapid Prototyping Class (UTD) was to take one game we had previously made for the class and to create more of a complete finished product while expanding on the original idea. I picked my game Second Player. Perhaps the reason this update is so late is because I was unhappy with the result, which I will explain why below. If you don't care why, you can still test it out at the link at the bottom.

For starters the original game was based around the idea of how our avatars in games mirror us (hence the theme being mirror). The idea for the main mechanic was that there would be two characters, one who faces all consequences, and the other, who faces all reward. The game then became a puzzle platformer with the mechanic being you must kill the second player to have him re-spawn in places he could not reach before. That game was fairly fun to play.

Now when I went in a second time I screwed up what made the first game work. Originally the game was a platforming game with puzzle elements, but once I added in a couple more features (levers and teleporting) the game became a puzzle game about placement, where you had to run and jump sometimes. This loss of activeness slows the game down and took what was originally about constant movement and death and turned it into something tedious about lining up. Once I added characters and graphics in I also believe this took away from it. The new characters were bulky and slow in comparison to my original swift black boxes. In the end what happened is I lost what originally made the game fun and got distracted with accessory features. Live and learn.

Monday, November 14, 2011

Hey folks! I'm back with this week's game. The theme this week was path. Initially I considered doing something about the straight and narrow path but dismissed it because it seemed too difficult to make fun or interesting. But then ... inspiration hit. Or something.I did it anyway is the point. I'm very pleased with the result of this unlike last weeks. Where is last weeks you say? SHUT UP YOU DON'T KNOW ME! I lost it OK. I lost it in the internet. Yeah.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

By far, one of my best weeks. We have color again! The theme this week was sequel. We had to download the Pirate Kart and make a sequel to one of the games. I chose Bento Smile's wonderful game, Unko's Adventure in Magical Land. So without further adieu, here is Unko's Adventure 2.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Oh look, there's color and the graphics aren't blocks! This was our project for the game jam. With a team of three other people (two from my prototyping class) we made Prometheus. The theme was 'Fall'. We did Prometheus' fall from grace with Zeus. I basically did level design, game mechanics, programming, assembly, and other contributions here and there.

This one was disappointing to me because I think the idea would have been fun. You are a time traveling garbage man, helping the people of the past to destroy their waste. They throw stuff out the window and you cut it with you matter dissolving sword. Occasionally they throw things out they didn't intend to, like babies, and you must change your sword to a next and catch the valuables. What I made? A game where you can slice blocks. So close...so far.

This was/is by far my favorite theme yet. After all is said and done, I want to go back and refine, add levels and more puzzles to this game. The game is based around you playing you playing a game. While you(game you) takes all the consequences, while the other virtual you has all the fun with infinite lives. And they mirror each others movements...because that's the theme.

So our next assignment was basically, keep playing with GameMaker or Construct. I chose to stick with GM and make a game about a zombie who can't quite figure out which way he wants to go. After a certain number a time the player's controls are switched and must then scramble to adapt.

So, this summer I was convinced myself to make a game. I thought to myself, I am going to be a Junior next year, I should have a game to show people by now. After some searching I stumble upon GameMaker, which coincidentally I would be using for my Rapid Prototyping class this semester.

Over a solid weekend of work this summer I accomplished to make a simple platformer. The game was intended to little kids at my church and a full game would include many similar mini-game like games.